Monday's news: Rubber chickens, deportations, and a new Dark Knight

July 18, 2011

There was another stabbing this weekend. Luckily, fake Batman is on the case.

In other news:

According to the Sun-Times, the town of Cicero spent $500k on trinkets since 2005. That's 250 rubber chickens. 9,500 backscratchers. 30,000 custom balloons. 11,200 beach balls. Sounds like they have an "in" at a party store. Hilarious joke, right? No, they actually do. They use a store for all of this that happens to be owned by the daughter of a trustee. This is pretty low rent favoritism. Step your game up Cicero.

B story: Again with the comments! There was an interesting story put together by WBEZ's Chip Mitchell on Dart mulling over not letting ICE detain illegal immigrants until ICE can deport them. Whatever, it's a tough story but Dart contends that the extra time and extra resources to help ICE is hurting us financially and hurting us in crime fighting. Nobody will trust (or help) the local cops because of fear of deportation. So he wants to split them up, essentially. Just find other ways to detain illegal immigrants and let us fight crime locally. Yesterday, I turned on my computer and saw hundreds of comments awaiting moderation. Guess what, they were all attacking Dart and denouncing illegal aliens and for 'derelection of duty.' It's obvious they were sent here by a newsletter and/or web site (I could find out which, but frankly I'm too busy (or scared) to invest time in this commentary). So should I turn of the comments? Or should I let them continue to comment, editing and deleting several of them?

D story: This was the first year in a few years that I haven't been to Pitchfork. But I really didn't miss out thanks to Jim DeRogatis and the WBEZ crew. What an unreal performance from Jim, Althea Legaspi and Robert Loerzel. They covered the entire festival. And hats off to Andrew Gill who produced the effort. And to all pull it off during a heatwave? You worked outside for 3 days straight. Yesterday must have been brutal. Gill - nice work. Did you go to Pitchfork? Did you almost die?

Secondly, how cool is DeRogatis?!!!! Jim is a friend and I love his work. He's been relevant in music for over 20 years. And even today, when he no longer writes for the big newspaper in town, he commands respect and maintains relevance by just doing his job. Your music sucks/kills? Jim will tell you. If you are getting a sweetheart deal? Jim will call it out. When we forget that there are questions to be asked about trends in music and performance? Jim doesn't. Whether you agree with his opinion or not. It's pretty awesome and if I were a young journalist, I would start trying to get into his Columbia College class. Imagine if you could get a course load at Columbia College and get a semester that featured DeRogatis and Dan Sinker. That would be a pretty great semester.

Weather: Yesterday was brutal. I am just waiting for some pops and buzzes and for all of Chicago air conditioning to go out. Skilling says record highs all week. This is when you go check on that old neighbor. I know it smells over there and the guy is probably naked, but c'mon. Suck it up for humanity.

Sports: I can't get enough of baseball. I watch so much now. Not local either, but whatever is on ESPN. The Wifey is loving it right now (that's sarcasm, folks). But am I the only one? Baseball gets a bad rap for taking too long and moving too slowly. But cable sports has truncated everything they possibly can and now it is a smorgasbord of logos, colors, home runs, diving plays and amped up drama. And they have me so hooked.

The Sox came out of the All-Star break with a series win over Detroit in Detroit. Right now, the Sox are now 4 back from the division leading Tigers. But don't look back (in anger), the Minnesota Twins are 5 back. Yuck.

Kicker: The city has been trying to shut down VIP's Gentlemen's Club (on Kingsbury) for 18 years. The city says the club shows too much this and too much that. If this heats up now and the city kicks out the club, they'll point to this long fight. But really, my guess is that that neighborhood (?) has changed and Whole Foods and the myriad toddler recreational facilities don't like that element. I hope it stays. Because I like to get my sushi and soy, organic, wheat grass smoothie and head over for a couple dances. This will positively ruin my Saturday afternoons.